Cellular phones and telephony services in general are ubiquitous in today's world. This is especially true with regard to third world countries emerging into economic super powers, such as India and China, where cellular phones are used by everyone from rikisha drivers to CEOs. In these countries, cellular phone service is the primary telephone service for many users, because cellular phone service is affordable and in many cases provides better service than landline service. In some situations, whether the consumer is in a third world country or not, affordability is made possible by prepaid cellular service. Prepaid service may be provided through SIM cards with a predetermined number of minutes. A SIM card may be purchased and put into the cellular phone to provide talk time. Go-phones are also popular and affordable. These typically include low-cost cellular phones with a prepaid amount of service available. Of course, cellular service providers may provide call plans where the user is billed monthly and given a predetermined number of minutes each month. However, call plans tend to be costly.
Even with cellular phone service being made affordable, there may be situations when a user does not have any minutes to make a call, or their service was discontinued for lack of payment. The user may be in a situation where they are unable to contact the service provider to renew service or purchase a prepaid SIM card. If the user has a friend or buddy with him having a working cellular phone, the user may borrow his friend's phone to make a call. However, if none of the user's friends are around, the user would likely be unable to make a call. Even if it is an emergency situation, where the user needs to contact a family member or other person, the user's call may be blocked by the service provider.